This Very Moment
by Gurkblomma
Summary: Love is exactly what is needed in all the darkness that surrounds us. A collection of one-shots to make you smile and believe. LE/JP
1. Today

**Pairing: Lily/James**

**First part in a short series of oneshots. I should probably mention that English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance for mistakes.**

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**In This Very Moment**

He is stroking her hair. And she enjoys it. It feels very relaxing, she muses in her thoughts, and half asleep she lies with her head in James' lap. Her normally piercing eyes are closed and her thoughts drowsy. Himself, James is holding a book with one hand and playing with her hair with the other. She, Lily, believes him to be reading, but really, he doesn't. He hasn't ever since she came to lie down curled up into him with a blanket covering half of her. Instead he is watching her. Just looking. Feeling how soft she is. Studying her facial features, even though he knows them off hands by now, and how relaxed she is in this very moment. Almost vulnerable. It isn't often he gets the opportunity to see her this way, despite the very close relationship they now have.

He still can't believe it. Not quite. Not always. That she actually is _his. _He knows she would contradict those words with all that is in her and one hell of a temper, but that is not the way he means it. He doesn't own her or anything, that's not what it is about. She is simply his. There is a very fine difference in that concept, one she wouldn't be able to fully grasp. But that's okay, he thinks. That thought in particular is one he doesn't have to share with her. Not now. Not when she finally is his.  
Without special momentum he puts away his book on the table next to the couch. He moves his hand, the one that earlier caressed her red curls, and places it to rest softly on her abdomen. The other one he places on the right hands earlier  
position. Her hair.

He enjoys incredibly much this simple being-ness of today. Enjoying the wonder in merely sitting for a full day without having to trouble himself over anything. No studies or younger students wanting his attention, no crazy – although hilarious – ideas from Sirius. Because even though he loves his best friend unconditionally, also this is amazing. And perhaps the best of all: not one drip of worry caused by the rising Voldemort exists in his mind, not even the thought of how professor Dumbledore has seemed more tired than ever on the few occasions when James has seen him these past weeks. James is not sure whether or not he has imagined, or if Dumbledore's beard actually has begun to turn grey. And no new examples of how first and second years become frightened while seeing the older pupils crack and break down in public because of having letters of death being delivered to them by the morning owls. The deaths are so many now that they aren't even being pronounced in person anymore. The first minutes of breakfast have become a moment of dread for everyone not secure by blood. However, he does not think of any of this. He feels more than well because of it.

He is slightly tired, but doesn't want to close his eyes just yet. The day, this day, is just a little too sweet to end already. Suddenly he is overpowered by an impulse to say something and he knows exactly, word by word, what he wants to tell her. He loves her.  
He has know for quite some time now, ever since he realised the fixation he had by Lily wasn't something temporary, something that would go away. But today, now, exactly this moment, he wants to tell her. He wants to say it. Everything. He would like to burst out in some romantic ballad, despite the fact that he couldn't hit a note to save his life. He wants to kiss her until she realises how beautiful she is. Live with her forever. That thought, the last one, should probably frighten s seventeen year old man. It doesn't. Not enough to have an impact on his life anyway. Suddenly he seems to understand how happy he is. What immense luck he has. And despite that it might not be the smartest move to tell her today, out of all days, he can't stop himself.  
He tells her.


	2. Right Now

**Summary: "You're having doubts," he says and he can't quite understand what she says. They're Lily and James, meant to live happily ever after. Right? ****One-shot set pre-marriage in the middle of war and love: life.**

**AN: Reviews are love, nothing is mine and English is not my first language. **

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"You're having doubts."

The words are so strange, so new and foreign, confusing even though he was the one to speak them in the first place and feels as if he must repeat them out loud to fully understand.

"You're having doubts."

Same intonation, same words. Same meaning.

She is standing over there, on the other side of the table, by the window, looking beautiful. She is always beautiful. She is always beautiful but today, now, right now, there is a different touch to it. Instead of that strength that he has grown so accustomed to, the one always shining from her very self, it isn't there. Absent. Replaced? He can see something else there, something he has never seen in her before. Fragility. How strange it seems to see it there.

"It's not about you, James," she says, the love of his life. "I love you, I really do. I just… This, all of this… It's gone so fast, and what if that's not the way to go? Don't you agree marriage is a bit soon?"

It is a leading question and she has taken a full step closer to him now. Somewhere in his mind the thought that there is two days to their wedding twirls and he blinks. It's supposed to be a small one. The wedding, that is. One with James' parents, the Marouders, Mad-Eye and Lily's best friend. Dumbledore. A small one. What else can be done in times like this?

She stands there, looking as if she expects him to say something, anything really. She has thought of phrases he will most likely use. _I love you, you love me. What's the problem? _Maybe _It's only pre-wedding jitters, Lils. No worries._ In her head she has seen him grow mad, furious because of the sole fact that he always walks in this bubble so sure of himself, his purpose and what he wants from life. On occasion she has imagined him crying. Not believing her. She has imagined the full range of it all but nothing is the way he tells it to her and nothing could have prepared her for it.

"I'm not going to convince you to marry me, Lily." He is calm, quiet almost, his eyes attached to the floor. "I won't force you. If you…" A pause. "If you don't want to marry me, if you have doubts, I won't force you. Lily."

He adds her name sounding somewhat forced, as if it pains him to use it. And then he looks up.

The pain in his face, in his eyes, his very being, it is raw and obvious and not hidden in the slightest, simply _there_ and it hurts her to look at him, to see him standing there. Because he stands there. Not shouting or screaming, raging at her and the world, not refusing to hear what she's saying, just accepting. In his eyes she can see incredulity but no anger. Pain. Oh, the pain.

"I'm glad you told me now," he forces out. He has to force himself to say it. To continue. "And…" He needs another pause, a break, something to make him breathe, to give him streanght. "If you want to we'll call it off. All of it. I don't want you to marry be because you have to. I want you to-"

His voice cracks and fails and he has to avert his eyes. He can't continue anymore. He can't do this and the thought that she might agree, that she might say yes and think his offer is a good one makes him sick to his stomach and he thinks please don't, please, please but he can't help it, he can't force her because, Merlin, he loves her so damn bad. He turns his face, his body, away, because he can't have her see him like this but he knows that he will and any other day that would be okay because he really did think that she loved him too. A tear slides down his face and then one more, another and another. It splashes against the floor but despite glasses he can't see it, can't see anything properly. What's the point. Why would it help?

He has never cried for himself in front of her before. He has cried twice, but never for himself. The first time when her parents died; he cried with her and for her. The second time the world just seemed to crash around him and it was too much. The deaths, the fear, the pain and all the suffocating fear for people, young people, children, the Sirius who grew crazier and more desperate, classmates who should be out laughing making mistakes that got them embarrassed and not killed. Mistakes that got them laughed at and that didn't result in corpses lying rotten in a coffin, alone at the bottom of a graveyard. But this time, he cries for himself. For himself, for the fact that she might be leaving and that gut-wrenching pain the fear of it causes without fault. She is unaccustomed to see this on his face, because he will forever remain an open book to her. She has never before read this… sadness. Joy has always been his most prominent expression, joy and laughter and love and courage. She thinks that is what convinces her. The naked and unashamed display of pain.

"I love you so much, James."

He hears her only distantly and later he'll remember that this was when he thought she'd do it. When he truly knew – she'd leave him. But she continues.  
"I think that's what makes me so afraid."

He is sitting down now and she walks up to him on the tiny couch they love to share with a blanket and she kneels in front of him.

"You mean so much to me. So much. And I can't imagine living without you. I mean, what if you'd die? What if you'd die, James. What if you'd leave me?"

Before he has time to reverently deny she has swiftly moved forward.

"I love you so much it terrifies me."

Now he looks at her and he sees: she's crying too.

"And I do James. I do wanna marry you."

Then his arms are full of her and all he can feel is relief, relief; relief so evident he has never felt the like of it before. He buries her face in her hair and it almost wiped away the tears, but not quite, not sufficiently, but that's alright, he's good, he's fine. She is there and he will forever be fine with Lily there. She's there. He can take a breath again. She is there. He smiles.


	3. A Second

**AN: Reviews are love, nothing is mine and English is not my first language.**

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"I love you?"

The words are said with such hesitation he cannot resist a laugh; a laugh that naturally causes her to scowl, frown. Beginnings of a rage. He chuckles and walks closer, lays a warm hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry. You just sounded so insecure."

"And you figured the right thing to do was to laugh?"

"Well, I had to take proper care of the moment," he smiles, hand warm. Comfort. "You're rarely uncomfortable in any situation."

A frown.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that the proper reply to a confession of love is an 'I Love you too'?"

"You sure you wanna go there?"

She blushes, thinking of it, his words spoken so much sooner than hers. Days ago, weeks.

Already she feels embarrassed at her incapability to say it, utter it, mean it. Mental really, but oh so true, she thinks, her face almost but not quite as red as her hair.

"Merlin, I told you not to worry about it, Lils. But – say it again."

"I love you," she says, meeting his eyes and he wears that ridiculously thrilled face and she cannot resist a smile of her own simply because of the joy he radiates. "I love you," she tells him again and she can see how he tries to extend his smile even more but simply cannot; already is it stretched to its limit. Impossibilities. Her smile softens as she keeps his gaze locked in hers.

"I love you, Lily."

That is when he tugs her close, close, close, close and then closer again because never is close close enough and never has he loved her more. Face buried in her hair he feels his own tears burning but he cannot possibly bring himself to care because he is so damn _happy_. It is warm and fuzzy and wonderful and not at all like that feeling of the all too obvious dread that follows him even more often. Not even the shame of smiling when others have died can quell this happiness, keep him from feeling this way when Lily, His Lily, tightly returns his embrace whispering wonderful words into his neck and shoulder and he feels as if maybe, just maybe, they have a shot at this; light in complete, compact darkness. Hope. Happiness, and only because of her. So he tugs her even tighter, closer, whispers another broken "I love you" and for a while she is all that holds him together and he is just so damn _lucky_ to have her, her love, because everything she offers she has just offered him. Not for a second dares he imagine a world without her. The choking thought, nightmare, of a lithe, broken body, green flashes and evil laughter has more than once had him reeling, breathing hard, her holding his hand. She always holds his hand. She, Lily, Love, is all that wards the evil, anxiety, off, and he loves her for it almost as much as he loves her for herself and that she is. And Merlin, the way she is. She leans back but does not pull away - there is a difference and never does she pull away - and she looks into his eyes, as if sensing the darker turn and twist of his thoughts.

"I love you."

Then she kisses him deeply and his lips move desperately against her mouth, her lips, passion, only thinking of happiness, how lucky he is. He has got Lily. He finally has her.


End file.
